The Stations of the Cross - Meditations on the Death & Resurrection of Jesus Christ

The Stations of the Cross - Meditations on the Death & Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Ahyh

© 2000 The Church of Yahweh

www.yhwh.com

May be freely distributed but never sold
The Stations of the Cross - Meditations on the Death & Resurrection of Jesus Christ

The Stations of The Cross - Introduction 3

STATION 1: THE HISTORICAL QUESTION 7

STATION 2: THE CLASSICAL STATIONS OF THE CROSS 13

STATION 3: THE CALL TO OBEDIENCE 18

STATION 4: THE CALL TO LOVE 24

STATION 5: THERE IS POWER IN THE BLOOD 27

STATION 6: THE FOCUS OF PROPHECY 44

STATION 7: THE REDUCTION/EXPANSION OF THE CHOSEN ONE 46

STATION 8: THE FULFILLMENT OF PASSOVER 48

STATION 9: THERE IS LIFE AFTER DEATH 49

STATION 10: IT IS OK TO BE ALONE 51

STATION 11: THE GOSPEL OF FAILURE 53

STATION 12: BIRTH IS DEATH, DEATH IS BIRTH 57

STATION 13: JESUS DIED FOR YOU 60

STATION 14: LIFE BEYOND EGO, OR, "YOU" DON'T EXIST 61

STATION 15: THE EUONGALEON 65

STATION 16: SIN KILLS GOD 69

STATION 17: THE TEMPORAL NATURE OF SUFFERING 71

STATION 18: GOD FEELS YOUR PAIN 73

STATION 19: THE ILLUSION OF POPULARITY 75

STATION 20: THE BREATH OF GOD 78

STATION 21: BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL TO LIFE 80

STATION 22: BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD 82

STATION 23: THE KOAN: REALMS BEYOND RATIONALITY 88

CONCLUSION 91

The Stations of The Cross - Introduction

For Christians, the central event of all history, and the central event of the eternal religious life, is the Passion of Jesus Christ: His death and His resurrection. His words are important; His teachings are valuable; His miracles can instruct us; and His parables inspire, but, without His death and resurrection, we probably would never have known His teachings, His miracles or His parables.

That is the good news. The bad news is that this holy and sacred event has become cheapened over the years. We sell crosses; we wear them around our necks and decorate our cars with them. Sometimes they have Jesus on the Cross; sometimes they don't. We make beautiful jewelry with them, and even people who are overtly atheistic wear very ornate and often expensive crosses; simply because it happens to be fashionable.

While this is, in and of itself sad, there is a much more insidious difficulty. That comes from within the Church itself. What I'm referring to is a condition known as myopia. Near sightedness. We can only see what's immediately in front of our eyes.

The cross of Jesus has been reduced to Jesus paying the price for our sins. Jesus died for me; Jesus died, so that I can go to Heaven. Certainly there is truth in this.

The problem is that there is much more to the truth. There is much more to be understood through Christ's Passion than simply "He died so you can go to Heaven."

Many Easters and Good Fridays, as I work in the Church, I hear a Pastor, (and this has happened across denominations and across county lines and across decades,) say something to the effect of "Good Friday and Easter are always the hardest sermons to preach because, what can you say that hasn't already been said? We've heard it before, we've said it all before, and there's really not very much left to talk about."

That is most tragically pathetic. It indicates a comfort and a familiarity, even a complacency with Christianity and with this highest, holiest, most sacred event. It is much like two people, who have been married for decades and know each other so well that they take each other entirely for granted.

The purpose of this writing is to attempt to restore part of the lost balance. The purpose of this writing is to take many looks at the death and resurrection of Jesus to see all we can learn from this amazing event.

I am so committed to the notion that there is much to learn about the Cross other than "Jesus died to pay for your sins," that you will not even find that issue discussed here. Anyone who is interested in that subject, what it truly means to say "Jesus died for you," must look elsewhere. I have treated the subject exhaustively in my writing, "In the Garden." It is in many ways my Christian Summa Theologica, where I discuss the fall and redemption of mankind, specifically as they relate to the manner in which Jesus atoned for humanity's sin.

Those of you who are interested should seek that writing, because it contains many surprises, the likes of which are, at times, shocking. However, for purposes of this document you will find none of that discussion here.

No. I am here concerned about curing our myopia, not in giving an extended treatise on atonement.

For the Christian, and for God's plan, the Cross of Christ is actually the focus of all truth. There is nothing you can learn or need to learn about God or your relationship with Him that cannot be learned through this revelation.

We will examine 23 different Stations of the Cross. By Stations of the Cross, I mean that Jesus is symbolically hanging upon the Cross on Mt. Golgotha, and we are standing at the foot of that Cross staring up at Him. What we are going to do is open both of our eyes so that we can see clearly in all 4 dimensions (adding the element of time), and take a walk around all 360 degrees of Golgotha to look clearly at the totality of the Passion event.

(The term "Stations of the Cross" classically refers to 15 different events during the last 24 hours of Jesus' life on the earth. They have been championed, most especially, by the Catholic church, and inside of Catholic churches, you can find windows, parchments and paintings which depict each of the 15 Stations of the Cross. We will be looking at those classical "Stations of the Cross" as just one of ours.)

We will see many different aspects of life and truth, which we can learn and are illustrated for us very clearly through this Cross.

Myopia is a deadening agent. If you stare constantly and unblinkingly at any single scene, your eye will eventually become numb. The rods and cones inside of your eyeball resonate with certain frequencies and send electrical impulses to your brain, which we then translate into the perception of light and color. If you stare at a green wall and do not move your eyes around, eventually your eyeball receptors become so attuned to that green frequency that they become actually tired and stop sending the frequency to the brain. As a result, the entire scene can begin to turn gray. If you do this conscientiously enough and determinedly enough, you will eventually have the entire field of vision go blank! Your eye can actually shut down entirely and stop sending any information whatsoever to the brain.

That is the danger of myopia. If we only see one thing, then we eventually come to the point where we see absolutely nothing at all.

It is likewise true, if the only thing we ever eat or the only thing we ever taste is pure sugar, eventually we adapt to the point where we can taste nothing at all. This is the danger. By reducing the Passion to the level of only one aspect, albeit an important, God-ordained revelation, we nevertheless have ruined our opportunities for any kind of true understanding. W can toss off statements such as "Jesus died for me" without thinking at all, without feeling, without reacting.

So, to return to the previous illustration, as you stare at that green wall your eye becomes numb to green. If you look away at a completely white wall, your eyes will see that white wall as red, the opposite of the green. The redness will seem very much more red, because you have become dulled to green. And, if you can stare at a red wall for a while, when you look back at the first green wall, that green wall will seem much more intensely, vividly green than it seemed previously.

That is the purpose of this writing: to give us a 360 degree panoramic view of Christ upon the Cross, and in so doing, freshen the eyes of our soul, cleansing our perceptions, and giving us the multiplex of information which creates true perception.

What do I mean by that?

You have been given (hopefully) two eyes. Those two eyes give you contradictory information. Your left eye sees things one way; your right eye sees things another way. They do not agree. They do not match up. A painting drawn by what your left eye sees would not match 100% the painting that your right eye sees.

This is not a problem. This is actually a great blessing. Because it is through the summing of the different images, through the resolution of the contradictions and the synthesizing of the discrepancies, that you are able to create 3-D vision.

People who have only one eye, either from birth or from accident, know the great difficulties they have in adjusting to a world where depth perception is forbidden to them.

That is the key here, the notion of depth. With only one eye, we can see height and width, but we do not have a valid, true measure of depth. Yes, when we see that Jesus died for us, we are seeing truth. But if that is all we see, then we have no depth. Our understanding is shallow. Our consciousness is severely limited.

A few more prefatory remarks, and then we will begin.

First, you will find that I do not stuff this writing full of Biblical references (chapter and verse indications). I do this intentionally. It is not because I do not have access to the Bible or do not know it, but it is rather an attempt to get you involved and personally interested.

I presuppose that you know the Bible. I presuppose that you have read all 4 gospels, and are very familiar with all of the writings of the New Testament. If you are not, then you are simply cheating yourself out of one of the richest, greatest experiences that a seeker for truth can have. Put this down immediately, find a Bible, and READ IT!

Therefore, since I assume that you are personally involved with your own religious life, and you are familiar with the writings of the Bible, it is not necessary to populate this document with endless references to different specific books, chapters and verses. In essence, I feel that you could or should do that work yourself.

Second, I do not, in any sense, want this work to be merely a scholarly or intellectual exercise. Religion is about life. It is about truth. It is about you and reality. I do not want any of my readers to approach this simply from a dispassionate, intellectual standpoint. This world obviously needs transformation: socialism is rampant, disease is rampant, crime is rampant. We do not need mere intellectual study. We must be able to transform lives.

That is why, ultimately, I am writing this. Because, I feel that the Church has done people a disservice by only presenting one small aspect of the truth. People need to see the full picture in order to have depth, in order for Christianity to be genuinely able to touch and transform their lives.

Third, you will find the majority of this document is somewhat of a surface level treatment. I touch upon many, many topics here, any one of which could be, and in some circles have been, turned into a complete book all of their own.

Any one topic can be exhaustively examined, and there is a lot of benefit in that. But, I am not going to treat each of these in that manner. I will paint each of these separate Stations of the Cross in fairly broad brush strokes. If I say anything that intrigues you, then I encourage you to pursue it and explore deeper understandings and greater detail through your own life, your own personal investigations, and other documents which contain far greater detail than I could ever hope to deliver.

I do this because I think that there is great power in understanding larger and larger amounts of information. That's the whole reason I'm attempting to attack the myopia. It has been said that an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until ultimately he knows absolutely everything about nothing at all. I think that there is a certain amount of wisdom in that.

Fourthly, I want you to see more and more things, albeit in lesser detail. Having concentrated for too long on too little, we understand almost nothing at all. The challenge of religion is the broadening of the mind, the expanding of the horizons. There are no questions that God is afraid of. There are no truths that He has that He does not want to share with us, as we are ready.

So with boldness and bravery, and hopefully a touch of excitement, let us begin.

STATION 1: THE HISTORICAL QUESTION

Religion is about truth. Religion is about understanding. Christianity poses itself as a true historical religion. Other religions in the world, such as Taoism, are not nearly so concerned about events of history. They are much more concerned about spiritual truths, which work for all people here and now. They do not look to a salvation event. They do not look to the past for a particular moment of enlightenment or God's intervention with the human race.

But Christianity does. This is one of the great dividing lines between Eastern and Western religions. The religions of the West, particularly Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam, point to specific moments within time and space where God got personally involved with the human race and did something on their behalf.

So, wherein many people may be more comfortable examining the spiritual or religious understandings we are able to derive from Christianity, we must nevertheless examine the historical question.

The simple question is, "How reliable and historical are the events portrayed in the New Testament, specifically as they pertain to Jesus' death and resurrection?"